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Editorial Review Product Description
The definitive biography of legendary singer-songwriter Paul Simon.Paul Simon, one of the country's most popular musicians, has been a dynamic creative force for more than half a century. Now New York Times bestselling biographer Marc Eliot draws on extensive research and original interviews to trace the incredible life and career of this iconic musician. Along the way Eliot examines Simon's early struggles to succeed as a singer-songwriter, the ups and downs of his decades-long collaboration with Art Garfunkel, his at-times obsessive admiration and competitive drive with Bob Dylan, his musical triumphs such as Still Crazy After All These Years and Graceland, the spectacular failure of his Broadway musical The Capeman, and much more. - The first comprehensive biography of Paul Simon and his music
- Explores the complex relationship between Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel through years of their musical breakups and reunions
- Reveals personal details, with interviews, of Simon's life away from music
- Includes dozens of exclusive photographs, several published for the first time
Whether you grew up listening to classic Simon and Garfunkel songs or came to love Paul Simon's music through his solo albums, this highly entertaining biography will give you a new understanding of this talented artist and the many surprising twists and turns of his life and work as a songwriter, a performer, and an icon of Boomer Generation. ... Read more Customer Reviews (8) 
Recommended for Music Fans
I really don't understand some of the harsh reviews here.This is a fun, fascinating book chronicling Simon's life and career.Passionate writing, lots of great details, good storytelling.Definitely recommended.
Smear job by a hack
If you're looking for insight into the life of a musical genius, this is not the book for you. Eliot spends the first ninety pages insulting Simon's music at every turn with sophomoric attempts at music criticism and a weird obsession with Dylan. We read more about the peripheral characters in Simon's career than about the man himself. Eliot's research seems to have involved little or no original interviewing, leaving him always with an outsider's uninformed perspective. Perhaps Paul Simon snubbed Eliot at a party once. It must have been something like that to cause a man who has no genuine understanding or appreciation of Paul Simon's music to write an entire book about him.
Keeps The Customer Dissatisfied
To anyone who knows the music and is interested in reading about the life and work of one of the most important and accomplished songwriter/performers of the last fifty years, Marc Eliot's "Paul Simon: A Life" is a major disappointment. The instinct of reviewer "ps fan" to avoid reading this volume based on the author's songtitling mistakes in the promo video turns out to be right on the "Marc", as it were; gaffes of this sort abound in the book with almost comical consistency.
The details of Simon's music are handled with astonishing carelessness -- the author lists "I Am A Rock" as the leadoff track of the album "Paul Simon Songbook", then tells us ten pages later that this song was left off the album; he mistakes Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World" (from Art Garfunkel's "Watermark" album, featuring Simon and James Taylor) for Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World"; he confuses Congolese guitarist Rigo Star (a brilliant contributor to the "Rhythm Of The Saints" sessions) with Beatle drummer Ringo Starr (nowhere to be found on this or any other Paul Simon album).
And this is just the tip of an immense iceberg.By the time one gets to "TWO and one-half wandering Jews" (my caps), one wonders if the author will give us a chapter on Simon's proud tenure as the bow-tied U.S. Senator from Illinois, or perhaps North Dakota...
Other aspects of Simon's life and career are given a treatment that leans more toward second- and third-hand industry/social circle gossip than serious research.A perusal of the Acknowlegements section reveals three-and-a-half melodramatic pages of the author's own life story and only a few paragraphs of actual acknowledgements, which list no recognizable first-hand sources.Inexplicably (but unsurprisingly) missing from the bibliography are such invaluable resources as Paul Zollo's extensive and highly informative interviews with Simon (published in Zollo's excellent "Songwriters On Songwriting") and the American Masters Series video documentary "Paul Simon: Born At The Right Time".
Paul Simon is a seminal figure in American popular music (and, arguably, modern geopolitical culture -- consider the timing and impact of "Graceland" on the ending of apartheid in South Africa, which Eliot altogether ignores), and his life and work certainly merit an updated, comprehensive, and thoroughly researched biographical treatment; one that places the music front and center with the respect and attention it deserves, by an author who respects his/her subject AND readership enough to get it right.The current volume is a botch from start to finish.
Great writing
It doesn't take more than reading the first few pages of this book to see that Marc Eliot is a skilled storyteller.He tells Paul Simon's story passionately, from the perspective of a true admirer.We get extreme detail - Paul's exact posture and facial expressions at S&G's famed Central Park concert - to larger historical and cultural contexts of some of his greatest hits. This is a great read for fans of Paul Simon, but also for someone looking to understand the spirit of the music scene in the 60s and in New York.A fun and satisfying book.
This book is great
S&G in Central Park is one of my desert island disks, and I love several other PS albums--OK, Surprise isn't that great, despite Eno's involvement--but I really didn't know much about the man.This book certainly did the trick.I loved reading about his time in England and just how the music industry worked in the early days, as well as about the making of Graceland.There's fascinating stuff throughout.
There are a couple of mistakes--one of the captions is wrong--but I've read enough bios to know there are always a few in every one.It's still an amazing book, and a great excuse to go back and listen to PS's albums again.
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